ST PAUL, Minn. — A man has been charged in the 1992 homicide of a St. Paul woman.
John Robert Capers, 65, of Minneapolis is being charged with second-degree murder in relation to the death of Annette Gail Seymour.
"It's always great to be able to bring someone to justice, especially when the wait has been so long," said Ramsey County Attorney John Choi, who said his office began looking into the cold case in 2018. "To review a cold case, you have to go really deep. You have to review everything that is in that file and you need to sit on it for awhile and think about it ... In this particular case, our prosecutor had been kind of thinking about this and looking at the evidence and asking investigators to follow up for about a year."
On July 14, 1992, at around 8:30 a.m., a citizen flagged down a St. Paul police officer and reported there was a deceased woman near Summit Avenue and Selby, prosecutors said.
The officer found a deceased woman lying in the grass near the retaining wall by the east entrance of the old Selby Avenue streetcar tunnel in St. Paul.
There was a stream of blood coming from the woman's head, and she was only wearing a long black t-shirt, not shoes, no socks, no pants or underwear, according to a criminal complaint.
The citizen who flagged down police told the officer that he was told about the body by another citizen. The citizen who was said to have initially found the body was still on scene and told the officer he saw the body while walking by, realized she was dead and flagged someone down, the complaint reads.
The woman was identified as Annette Gail Seymour by fingerprints.
An autopsy determined she had eleven stab wounds on her neck, chest, back and arms. In addition, the autopsy found several bruises and abrasions on her. Her blood alcohol level at the time of death was 0.208.
The cause of death was determined to be severe blood loss due to multiple stab wounds, and the manner of death was determined to be a homicide.
Investigators found the building Seymour lived in in St. Paul on Dayton Avenue and spoke to another resident who said she saw Seymour outside the apartment at around 12:30 a.m. on July 14 and that she appeared to be drunk, prosecutors said.
Investigators spoke to a woman who said knew Seymour from the neighborhood. The woman said she was visiting a friend on Dayton Avenue and saw Seymour arguing with a man at about 1:00 or 2:00 a.m., and that Seymour was only wearing a long dark shirt and she called the man she was arguing with "Jamie," the complaint reads.
"Jamie" was identified by investigators as Seymour's husband, James Fletcher.
Investigators spoke with Fletcher and said he and Seymour had been married for four years and that it was a difficult relationship because of Seymour's drinking.
He said he was not living with Seymour but would spend the night with her sometimes.
He told investigators he stayed with her Sunday night July 12, and was with her much of the day Monday. He said she had been drinking and they argued repeatedly.
Fletcher said they parted ways at around 9 p.m. when she got into a vehicle with an unknown man when they were outside a bar on West Seventh Street. Fletcher said he then went to his friend's apartment, who lived near Seymour.
Fletcher said that after spending time with his friend and his friend's wife, he went back to Seymour's apartment and found her there with the radio blasting, they argued again and he said Seymour hit him and threw food at him.
Fletcher told investigators he left the apartment and Seymour followed him, still arguing.
Fletcher said Seymour eventually left him and walked back up the stairs but didn't see where she went after that.
Investigators noted Fletcher became emotional during his verbal statement but denied having anything to do with Seymour's death, according to the complaint.
Investigators spoke to Fletcher's friend's wife, who is now deceased, who said Fletcher did spend the evening with them and later returned to sleep on their floor after the argument with Seymour and did not mention seeing blood or anything unusual, the complaint states.
Fletcher died in 2008.
In 2009, the Minnesota Bureau of Criminal Apprehension conducted forensic tests on certain pieces of evidence in this case.
The BCA found a stain that tested positive for semen on Seymour's shirt, and obtained a male DNA profile, which matched the DNA profile for John Robert Capers, the defendant, prosecutors said.
In June 2011, investigators obtained a DNA sample from Capers, ran confirmation tests, and found the DNA sample matched, Capers' DNA profile and not Fletcher's, according to the complaint.
The BCA also performed tests on other areas around Seymour's shirt, and a rope attached to a whistle on her neck. These items tested positive for blood and the DNA matched Seymour's profiles but not Capers' or Fletcher's, the complaint reads.
But St. Paul police say it wasn't enough to bring the case to prosecutors and when their funding for a special cold case investigator ran out, the case went cold again. Then prosecutors in Choi's office started looking into it in 2018.
"Part of it is just kind of thinking about it from a different perspective and looking at it with fresh eyes," Choi said.
On Nov. 30, 1987, while testifying in court for another matter, Capers said he was living at 940 Marshall Avenue in St. Paul, which is around 1.7 miles from where Seymour's body was found.
The criminal complaint does not clarify how the victim and Capers are connected.
Capers is appearing in court Thursday Dec. 12.